Chapter 21

[98]Mounier must be supposed to speak ironically, and in allusion, not to his own opinions, but to Mirabeau's revolutionary tenets. Another account of this singular conversation states his answer to have been, "All the better. If the mob kill all of us—remark, I sayallof us, it will be the better for the country."—S.—Thiers, tom. i., p. 138.[99]Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 257.[100]"In the gallery a crowd of fish women were assembled under the guidance of one virago with stentorian lungs, who called to the deputies familiarly by name, and insisted that their favourite Mirabeau should speak."—Dumont, p. 181.[101]Mignet, tom. i., p. 92.[102]This was proposed by that Marquis de Favras, whose death upon the gallows, [Feb. 19, 1790,] for a Royalist plot, gave afterwards such exquisite delight to the citizens of Paris. Being the first man of quality whom they had seen hanged, (that punishment having been hitherto reserved for plebeians,) they encored the performance, and would fain have hung him up a second time. The same unfortunate gentleman had previously proposed to secure the bridge at Sevres with a body of cavalry, which would have prevented the women from advancing to Versailles. The Queen signed an order for the horses with this remarkable clause:—"To be used if the King's safety is endangered, but in no danger which affects me only."—S.—"The secret of this intrigue never was known; but I have no doubt Favras was one of those men who, when employed as instruments, are led by vanity much further than their principals intend."—Dumont, p. 174.[103]Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 217.[104]Rivarol, p. 300; Mignet, tom. i., p. 93.[105]One of the most accredited calumnies against the unfortunate Marie Antoinette pretends, that she was on this occasion surprised in the arms of a paramour. Buonaparte is said to have mentioned this as a fact, upon the authority of Madame Campan. [O'Meara'sNapoleon in Exile, vol. ii., p. 172.] We have now Madame Campan's own account, [Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 78.] describing the conduct of the Queen on this dreadful occasion as that of a heroine, and totally excluding the possibility of the pretended anecdote. But let it be farther considered, under what circumstances the Queen was placed—at two in the morning, retired to a privacy liable to be interrupted (as it was) not only by the irruption of the furious banditti who surrounded the palace, demanding her life, but by the entrance of the King, or of others, in whom circumstances might have rendered the intrusion duty; and let it then be judged, whether the dangers of the moment, and the risk of discovery, would not have prevented Messalina herself from choosing such a time for an assignation.—S.[106]The miscreant's real name was Jourdan, afterwards calledCoupe-Tête, distinguished in the massacres of Avignon. He gained his bread by sitting as an academy-model to painters, and for that reason cultivated his long beard. In the depositions before the Chatelet, he is calledL'Homme à la barbe—an epithet which might distinguish the ogre or goblin of some ancient legend.—S.[107]Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 238.[108]Thiers, tom. i., p. 182; Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 241.[109]Rivarol, p. 312; Campan, vol. ii., p. 81.[110]Mémoires de Weber, vol. ii., p. 457.—S.[111]"The Queen, on returning from the balcony, approached my mother, and said to her, with stifled sobs, 'They are going to force the King and me to Paris, with the heads of our body-guards carried before us, on the point of their pikes.' Her prediction was accomplished."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 344.[112]It has been said that they were borne immediately before the royal carriage; but this is an exaggeration where exaggeration is unnecessary. These bloody trophies preceded the royal family a great way on the march to Paris.—S.[113]"Nous ne manquerons plus de pain; nous amenons le boulanger, la boulangère, et le petit mitron!"—Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 244.[114]Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 243.[115]"The King said to the mayor, 'I come with pleasure to my good city of Paris;' the Queen added, 'and with confidence.' The expression was happy, but the event, alas! did not justify it."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 344.[116]The Mayor of Paris, although such language must have sounded like the most bitter irony, had no choice of words on the 6th October, 1789. But if he seriously termed that "a glorious day," what could Bailli complain of the studied insults and cruelties which he himself sustained, when, in Oct. 1792, the same banditti of Paris, who forced the King from Versailles, dragged himself to death, with every circumstance of refined cruelty and protracted insult?—S.—It was not on the 6th October, but the 17th July, three days after the capture of the Bastile, that Bailli, on presenting Louis with the keys of Paris, made use of this expression.—See Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 203.[117]"As the arrival of the royal family was unexpected, very few apartments were in a habitable state, and the Queen had been obliged to get tent-beds put up for her children in the very room where she received us; she apologized for it, and added, 'You know that I did not expect to come here.' Her physiognomy was beautiful, but irritated; it was not to be forgotten after having been seen."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 345.[118]Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 265.[119]"On being informed of the King's determination to quit Versailles for Paris, the Assembly hastily passed a resolution, that it was inseparable from the King, and would accompany him to the capital."—Thiers, tom. i., p. 182.[120]See Richard the Third, act v., sc. iii.[121]Barnave, as well as Mirabeau, the Republican as well as the Orleanist, was heard to exclaim, "Courage, brave Parisians—liberty for ever—fear nothing—we are for you!"—SeeMémoires de Ferrieres, li., iv.—S.[122]See the proceedings before the Chatelet.—S.—See also Thiers, tom. i., p. 184; Lacretelle, tom. vii.; and M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 350.[123]Thiers, tom. i., p. 192; Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 262.[124]"The indignant populace murmured at the severity. 'What!' they exclaimed, 'is this our liberty? We can no longer hang whom we please!'"—Toulongeon, tom. i., p. 168.[125]"A simple decree, proposed, June 20th, by Lameth, that the titles of duke, count, marquis, viscount, baron, and chevalier, should be suppressed, was carried by an overwhelming majority."—Mignet, tom. ii., p. 114.[126]Richard the Second, act iii., sc. i.[127]"One of the most singular propositions of this day was, that of renouncing the names of estates, which many families had borne for ages, and obliging them to resume their patronymic appellations. In this way the Montmorencies would have been called Bouchard; La Fayette, Mottié; Mirabeau, Riquetti. This would have been stripping France of her history; and no man, how democratic soever, either would or ought to renounce in this manner the memory of his ancestors."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 364.[128]The Comte de Mirabeau was furious at being calledRiquetti l'ainé, and said, with great bitterness, when his speeches were promulgated under that name, "Avec votre Riquetti, vous avez désorienté l'Europe pour trois jours." Mirabeau was at heart an aristocrat. But what shall we say of Citoyenne Roland, who piques herself on the plebeian sound of her name,Manon Philipon, yet inconsequentially upbraids Citoyen Pache with his father's having been a porter!—S.—Memoirs, part i., p. 140.[129]This proposition was made by Talleyrand, then Bishop of Autun. In support of it he argued, that "the clergy were not proprietors, but depositories of their estates; that no individual could maintain any right of property, or inheritance in them; that they were bestowed originally by the munificence of kings or nobles, and might now be resumed by the nation, which had succeeded totheirrights." To this Maury and Siêyes replied, "that it was an unfounded assertion that the property of the Church was at the disposal of the state; that it flowed from the munificence or piety of individuals in former ages, and was destined to a peculiar purpose, totally different from secular concerns; that, if the purposes originally intended could not be carried into effect it should revert to the heirs of the donors, but certainly not accrue to the legislature."—Thiers, tom. i., p. 193.[130]M. de Chateaubriand says, "The funds thus acquired were enormous, the church-lands were nearly one-half of the whole landed property of the kingdom."[131]See Sir Henry Spelman's treatise on the "History of Sacrilege."[132]See M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 384. "The retreat of Necker produced a total change in the ministry. Of those who now came into office two were destined to perish on the scaffold, and a third by the sword of the revolutionary assassins."—Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 92.[133]Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 38.[134]Mignet, tom. i., pp. 107, 121; Thiers, tom. i., pp. 240, 266.[135]Mignet says, "The Constitutional Church establishment was not the work of the modern philosophers, but was devised by the Jansenists, or rigid party." No doubt, the Jansenists, dupes of the philosophers, fancied themselves guides instead of blind instruments.[136]It was their custom to sit on the highest rows of benches in the hall.[137]Mémoires du Marquis des Ferrieres, l. iii.[138]Mémoires de Bailli, 16 Août.[139]Prudhomme, tom. ii., p. 297.[140]See Mignet, tom. i., p. 126; Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 128."I have had in my hands a letter of Mirabeau, written for the purpose of being shown to the King. He there made offer of all his means to restore to France an efficient and respected, but a limited monarchy; he made use, among others, of this remarkable expression: 'I should lament to have laboured at nothing but a vast destruction.'"—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 401."He (Mirabeau) received for a short time a pension of 20,000 francs, or £800 a-month, first from the Comte D'Artois, and afterwards the King; but he considered himself an agent intrusted with their affairs, and he accepted those pensions not to be governed by, but to govern, those who granted them."—Dumont, p. 230.[141]Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 126.[142]Mirabeau bore much of his character imprinted on his person and features. He was short, bull-necked, and very strongly made. A quantity of thick matted hair hung round features of a coarse and exaggerated character, strongly scarred and seamed. "Figure to your mind," he said, describing his own countenance to a lady who knew him not, "a tiger who has had the small-pox." When he talked of confronting his opponents in the Assembly, his favourite phrase was, "I will show themLa Hure," that is, the boar's head, meaning his own tusked and shaggy countenance.—S.[143]"Mirabeau knew that his end was approaching. 'After my death,' said he, 'the factions will share among themselves the shreds of the monarchy.' He suffered cruelly in the last days of his life; and, when no longer able to speak, wrote to his physician for a dose of opium, in these words of Hamlet, 'to die—to sleep.' He received no consolation from religion."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 402.[144]"His funeral obsequies were celebrated with extraordinary pomp by torchlight; 20,000 national guards, and delegates from all the sections of Paris, accompanied the corpse to the Pantheon, where it was placed by the remains of Des Cartes."—Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 135.[145]Toulongeon, tom. i., p. 242; Mignet, tom. i., p. 132.[146]Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 220.[147]Mignet, tom. i., p. 132; Thiers, tom. i., p. 287.[148]See Annual Register, vol. xxxiii., p. 131.[149]"To deceive any one that might follow, we drove about several streets: at last we returned to the Little Carousel. My brother was fast asleep at the bottom of the carriage. We saw M. de la Fayette go by, who had been at my father'scoucher. There we remained, waiting a full hour, ignorant of what was going on. Never did time appear so tedious."—Duchess of Angoulême'sNarrative, p. 9.[150]Bouillé's Memoirs, pp. 275-290; Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 258.[151]The following anecdote will serve to show by what means this conclusion was insinuated into the public mind. A group in the Palais Royal were discussing in great alarm the consequences of the King's flight, when a man, dressed in a thread-bare great-coat, leaped upon a chair and addressed them thus:—"Citizens, listen to a tale, which shall not be a long one. A certain well-meaning Neapolitan was once on a time startled in his evening walk, by the astounding intelligence that the Pope was dead. He had not recovered his astonishment, when behold he is informed of a new disaster,—the King of Naples was also no more. 'Surely,' said the worthy Neapolitan, 'the sun must vanish from heaven at such a combination of fatalities.' But they did not cease here. The Archbishop of Palermo, he is informed, has also died suddenly. Overcome by this last shock he retired to bed, but not to sleep. In the morning he was disturbed in his melancholy reverie by a rumbling noise, which he recognised at once to be the motion of the wooden instrument which makes macaroni. 'Aha!' says the good man, starting up, 'can I trust my ears?—The Pope is dead—the King of Naples is dead—the Bishop of Palermo is dead—yet my neighbour the baker makes macaroni! Come! The lives of these great folk are not then so indispensable to the world after all.'" The man in the great-coat jumped down and disappeared. "I have caught his meaning," said a woman amongst the listeners. "He has told us a tale, and it begins like all tales—There wasONCEa King and a Queen."—S.[152]Three commissioners, Petion, La Tour Maubourg, and Barnave, were sent to reconduct the fugitives to Paris. They met them at Epernay, and travelled with them to the Tuileries. During the journey, Barnave, though a stern Republican, was so melted by the graceful dignity of the Queen, and impressed with the good sense and benevolence of the King, that he became inclined to the royal cause, and ever after supported their fortunes. His attentions to the Queen were so delicate, and his conduct so gentle, that she assured Madame Campan, that she forgave him all the injuries he had inflicted on her family.—Thiers, tom. i., p. 299.[153]"Count de Dampierre, a nobleman inhabiting a chateau near the road, approaching to kiss the hand of the King, was instantly pierced by several balls from the escort; his blood sprinkled the royal carriage, and his remains were torn to pieces by the savages."—Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 271;M. de Campan, tom. ii., p. 154.[154]Drawn up by Brissot, author of thePatriot Française.[155]Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 311.[156]Mémoires de Mad. Roland, art. "Robert,"—S.—[part i., p. 157.][157]Thiers, tom. i., p. 312.[158]"Mr. Fox told me in England, in 1793, that at the time of the King's departure to Varennes, he should have wished that he had been allowed to quit the kingdom in peace."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 408.Napoleon said at St. Helena:—"The National Assembly never committed so great an error as in bringing back the King from Varennes. A fugitive and powerless, he was hastening to the frontier, and in a few hours would have been out of the French territory. What should they have done in these circumstances? Clearly facilitated his escape, and declared the throne vacant by his desertion. They would thus have avoided the infamy of a regicide government, and attained their great object of republican institutions."[159]Mignet, tom. i., p. 141; Dumont, p. 244.[160]"One evening M. de Narbonne made use of this expression: 'I appeal to the most distinguished members of this Assembly.' At that moment the whole party of the Mountain rose up in a fury, and Merlin, Bazire, and Chabot, declared, that 'all the deputies were equally distinguished.'"—M. de Staël, tom. ii., p. 39.[161]Cazalès, one of the most brilliant orators of the Assembly, was born at Grenade-sur-la-Garonne in 1752. He died in 1805. In 1821,Les Discours et Opinions de Cazalèswere published at Paris, in an octavo volume.[162]Shortly after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, Maury retired to Italy, where he became a cardinal. In 1806, he returned to France, and in 1810 was made, by Napoleon, Archbishop of Paris. He died at Rome in 1817.[163]After the 10th of August, 1792, Duport fled to Switzerland, where he died in 1798.[164]King John, act ii., sc. i.[165]Dumont, p. 272; Mignet, tom. i., p. 151.[166]Hudibras, part iii., c. 2.[167]Chabot was the principal editor of a paper entitledJournal Populaire, ou le Catéchisme des Sans Culottes. He was guillotined in April, 1794.[168]Thiers, tom. ii., p. 12; Mignet, tom. i., p. 152.[169]Mémoires de Barbaroux, p. 47; Mignet, tom. i., p. 220.[170]See Annual Register, vol. xxxiv., pp. 70-72, 73.[171]This work made its appearance in November, 1790; about 30,000 copies were sold; and a French translation, by M. Dupont, quickly spread its reputation throughout Europe. "The publication of Burke towards the close of the year 1790," says Lacretelle, "was one of the most remarkable events of the eighteenth century. It is a history, by anticipation, of the first fifteen years of the French Revolution."—Tom. viii., p. 182. "However the arguments of Burke may seem to have been justified by posterior events, it yet remains to be shown, that the war-cry then raised against France did not greatly contribute to the violence which characterised that period. It is possible that had he merely roused the attention of the governments and wealthy classes to the dangers of this new political creed, he might have proved the saviour of Europe; but he made such exaggerated statements, and used arguments so alarming to freedom, that on many points he was not only plausibly, but victoriously refuted."—Dumont, p. 137.[172]"Guerre aux châteaux, paix aux hamaux."[173]Clootz was born at Cleves in 1755. Being suspected by Robespierre, he was, in May, 1794, sent to the guillotine.[174]Menou was born at Boussay de Loches in 1750. After Buonaparte's flight from Egypt, he turned Mahometan, submitted to the peculiar rites of Islamism, and called himself Abdallah James Menou. He died at Venice in 1810; of which place he had been appointed Governor by Napoleon.[175]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 52.[176]See Burke's Works, vol. viii., p. 272.[177]Their number was at this time, with their families, nearly a hundred thousand.—See Burke, vol. viii., p. 72, and Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 117.[178]See Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 117.[179]Jomini, tom. i., p. 265; Lacretelle, tom. viii., pp. 334, 439; De Bouillé, p. 422.[180]See two articles on the pretended treaties of Pavia and Pilnitz, signed Detector, in the Anti-jacobin Newspaper, July 2, 1798. They were, we believe, written by the late Mr. Pitt. [Since this work was published it seems to have become certain that the letters there referred to were the productions of Lord Grenville, at that time Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.]—"As far as we have been able to trace," said Mr. Pitt, in 1800, "the declaration signed at Pilnitz referred to the imprisonment of Louis: its immediate view was to effect his deliverance, if a concert sufficiently extensive could be formed for that purpose. I left the internal state of France to be decided by the King restored to his liberty, with the free consent of the states of the kingdom, and it did not contain one word relative to the dismemberment of the country."—Parliamentary History, vol. xxxiv., p. 1316.—S.[181]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 61; Thiers, tom. ii., p. 48.[182]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 48.[183]"The adoption of this oppressive decree was signalized by the first open expression ofatheisticalsentiments in the Assembly. 'My God is the Law; I acknowledge no other,' was the expression of Isnard. The remonstrance of the constitutional bishops had no effect. The decree was carried amidst tumult and acclamation."—Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 46.[184]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 46.[185]Mignet, tom. i., p. 164; Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 74. "The war department was intrusted, in December, 1791, to M. de Narbonne. He employed himself with unfeigned zeal in all the preparations necessary for the defence of the kingdom. Possessing rank and talents, the manners of a court, and the views of a philosopher, that which was predominant in his soul was military honour and French valour. To oppose the interference of foreigners under whatever circumstances, always seemed to him the duty of a citizen and a gentleman. His colleagues combined against him, and succeeded in obtaining his removal. He lost his life at the siege of Torgau, in 1813."—M. de Staël, vol. ii., p. 39.[186]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 77.[187]This strange argument reminds us of an Essay read before a literary society in dispraise of the east wind, which the author supported by quotations from every poem or popular work, in which Eurus is the subject of invective. The learned auditors sustained the first part of this infliction with becoming fortitude, but declined submitting to the second, understanding that the accomplished author had there fortified himself by the numerous testimonies of almost all poets in favour of the west, and which, with logic similar to that of M. Brissot in the text, he regarded as indirect testimony against the east wind.—S.[188]"On Sunday, the 30th October, 1791, the gates were closed, the walls guarded so as to render escape impossible, and a band of assassins, commanded by the barbarous Jourdan, sought out in their own houses the individuals destined for death. Sixty unhappy wretches were speedily thrust into prison, where, during the obscurity of night, the murderers wreaked their vengeance with impunity. One young man put fourteen to death with his own hand, and only desisted from excess of fatigue. Twelve women perished, after having undergone tortures which my pen cannot describe. When vengeance had done its worst, the remains of the victims were torn and mutilated, and heaped up in a ditch, or thrown into the Rhone."—Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 54.[189]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 75.[190]"After a long exposition by Dumouriez, the King, with a tremulous voice, pronounced these words:—'You have heard, gentlemen, the result of my negotiations with the Court of Vienna: they are conformable to the sentiments more than once expressed to me by the National Assembly, and confirmed by the great majority of the kingdom. All prefer a war to the continuance of outrages to the national honour, or menaces to the national safety. I have exhausted all the means of pacification in my power; I now come, in terms of the Constitution, to propose to the Assembly, that we should declare war against the King of Hungary and Bohemia.'"—Mignet, tom. i., p. 168;Annual Register, vol. xxxiv., p. 201;Dumouriez, vol. ii., p. 272.[191]"I was present at the sitting in which Louis was forced to a measure which was necessarily painful to him in so many ways. His features were not expressive of his thoughts, but it was not from dissimulation that he concealed them; a mixture of resignation and dignity repressed in him every outward sign of his sentiments. On entering the Assembly, he looked to the right and left, with that kind of vacant curiosity which is usual to persons who are so shortsighted that their eyes seem to be of no use to them. He proposed war in the same tone of voice as he might have used in requiring the most indifferent decree possible."—M. de Staël, vol. ii., p. 40.[192]The site of the old convent of the Feuillans.[193]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 76.[194]Servan was born at Romans in 1741, and died at Paris in 1808. "He was," says Madame Roland, "an honest man in the fullest signification of the term; an enlightened patriot, a brave soldier, and an active minister; he stood in need of nothing but a more sober imagination, and a more flexible mind."—Memoirs, part i., p. 72.[195]Clavière was born at Geneva in 1735, "where," says M. Dumont, "he became one of the popular leaders: shrewd and penetrating, he obtained the credit of being also cunning and artful: he was a man of superior intellect: deaf from his youth, and, deprived by this infirmity of the pleasures of society, he had sought a compensation in study, and formed his education by associating politics and moral philosophy with trade."—Being denounced by Robespierre, to avoid the guillotine, he stabbed himself in his prison, June 9, 1793. His wife poisoned herself on the following day.[196]Duranthon was born at Massedon in 1736. In December, 1793, he was dragged before the revolutionary tribunal, and guillotined. "He was an honest man, but very indolent: his manner indicated vanity, and his timid disposition and pompous prattle made him always appear to me no better than an old woman."—Mad. Roland, part i., p. 71.[197]"A true jack-in-office of the old order of things, of which he had the insignificant and awkward look, cold manner, and dogmatic tone. He was deficient both in the extensive views and activity necessary for a minister."—Mad. Roland, p. 70. He died in 1803.[198]Thiers, tom. ii., p. 59; Mignet, tom. i., p. 64; Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 89.

[99]Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 257.

[100]"In the gallery a crowd of fish women were assembled under the guidance of one virago with stentorian lungs, who called to the deputies familiarly by name, and insisted that their favourite Mirabeau should speak."—Dumont, p. 181.

[101]Mignet, tom. i., p. 92.

[102]This was proposed by that Marquis de Favras, whose death upon the gallows, [Feb. 19, 1790,] for a Royalist plot, gave afterwards such exquisite delight to the citizens of Paris. Being the first man of quality whom they had seen hanged, (that punishment having been hitherto reserved for plebeians,) they encored the performance, and would fain have hung him up a second time. The same unfortunate gentleman had previously proposed to secure the bridge at Sevres with a body of cavalry, which would have prevented the women from advancing to Versailles. The Queen signed an order for the horses with this remarkable clause:—"To be used if the King's safety is endangered, but in no danger which affects me only."—S.—"The secret of this intrigue never was known; but I have no doubt Favras was one of those men who, when employed as instruments, are led by vanity much further than their principals intend."—Dumont, p. 174.

[103]Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 217.

[104]Rivarol, p. 300; Mignet, tom. i., p. 93.

[105]One of the most accredited calumnies against the unfortunate Marie Antoinette pretends, that she was on this occasion surprised in the arms of a paramour. Buonaparte is said to have mentioned this as a fact, upon the authority of Madame Campan. [O'Meara'sNapoleon in Exile, vol. ii., p. 172.] We have now Madame Campan's own account, [Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 78.] describing the conduct of the Queen on this dreadful occasion as that of a heroine, and totally excluding the possibility of the pretended anecdote. But let it be farther considered, under what circumstances the Queen was placed—at two in the morning, retired to a privacy liable to be interrupted (as it was) not only by the irruption of the furious banditti who surrounded the palace, demanding her life, but by the entrance of the King, or of others, in whom circumstances might have rendered the intrusion duty; and let it then be judged, whether the dangers of the moment, and the risk of discovery, would not have prevented Messalina herself from choosing such a time for an assignation.—S.

[106]The miscreant's real name was Jourdan, afterwards calledCoupe-Tête, distinguished in the massacres of Avignon. He gained his bread by sitting as an academy-model to painters, and for that reason cultivated his long beard. In the depositions before the Chatelet, he is calledL'Homme à la barbe—an epithet which might distinguish the ogre or goblin of some ancient legend.—S.

[107]Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 238.

[108]Thiers, tom. i., p. 182; Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 241.

[109]Rivarol, p. 312; Campan, vol. ii., p. 81.

[110]Mémoires de Weber, vol. ii., p. 457.—S.

[111]"The Queen, on returning from the balcony, approached my mother, and said to her, with stifled sobs, 'They are going to force the King and me to Paris, with the heads of our body-guards carried before us, on the point of their pikes.' Her prediction was accomplished."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 344.

[112]It has been said that they were borne immediately before the royal carriage; but this is an exaggeration where exaggeration is unnecessary. These bloody trophies preceded the royal family a great way on the march to Paris.—S.

[113]"Nous ne manquerons plus de pain; nous amenons le boulanger, la boulangère, et le petit mitron!"—Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 244.

[114]Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 243.

[115]"The King said to the mayor, 'I come with pleasure to my good city of Paris;' the Queen added, 'and with confidence.' The expression was happy, but the event, alas! did not justify it."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 344.

[116]The Mayor of Paris, although such language must have sounded like the most bitter irony, had no choice of words on the 6th October, 1789. But if he seriously termed that "a glorious day," what could Bailli complain of the studied insults and cruelties which he himself sustained, when, in Oct. 1792, the same banditti of Paris, who forced the King from Versailles, dragged himself to death, with every circumstance of refined cruelty and protracted insult?—S.—It was not on the 6th October, but the 17th July, three days after the capture of the Bastile, that Bailli, on presenting Louis with the keys of Paris, made use of this expression.—See Prudhomme, tom. i., p. 203.

[117]"As the arrival of the royal family was unexpected, very few apartments were in a habitable state, and the Queen had been obliged to get tent-beds put up for her children in the very room where she received us; she apologized for it, and added, 'You know that I did not expect to come here.' Her physiognomy was beautiful, but irritated; it was not to be forgotten after having been seen."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 345.

[118]Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 265.

[119]"On being informed of the King's determination to quit Versailles for Paris, the Assembly hastily passed a resolution, that it was inseparable from the King, and would accompany him to the capital."—Thiers, tom. i., p. 182.

[120]See Richard the Third, act v., sc. iii.

[121]Barnave, as well as Mirabeau, the Republican as well as the Orleanist, was heard to exclaim, "Courage, brave Parisians—liberty for ever—fear nothing—we are for you!"—SeeMémoires de Ferrieres, li., iv.—S.

[122]See the proceedings before the Chatelet.—S.—See also Thiers, tom. i., p. 184; Lacretelle, tom. vii.; and M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 350.

[123]Thiers, tom. i., p. 192; Lacretelle, tom. vii., p. 262.

[124]"The indignant populace murmured at the severity. 'What!' they exclaimed, 'is this our liberty? We can no longer hang whom we please!'"—Toulongeon, tom. i., p. 168.

[125]"A simple decree, proposed, June 20th, by Lameth, that the titles of duke, count, marquis, viscount, baron, and chevalier, should be suppressed, was carried by an overwhelming majority."—Mignet, tom. ii., p. 114.

[126]Richard the Second, act iii., sc. i.

[127]"One of the most singular propositions of this day was, that of renouncing the names of estates, which many families had borne for ages, and obliging them to resume their patronymic appellations. In this way the Montmorencies would have been called Bouchard; La Fayette, Mottié; Mirabeau, Riquetti. This would have been stripping France of her history; and no man, how democratic soever, either would or ought to renounce in this manner the memory of his ancestors."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 364.

[128]The Comte de Mirabeau was furious at being calledRiquetti l'ainé, and said, with great bitterness, when his speeches were promulgated under that name, "Avec votre Riquetti, vous avez désorienté l'Europe pour trois jours." Mirabeau was at heart an aristocrat. But what shall we say of Citoyenne Roland, who piques herself on the plebeian sound of her name,Manon Philipon, yet inconsequentially upbraids Citoyen Pache with his father's having been a porter!—S.—Memoirs, part i., p. 140.

[129]This proposition was made by Talleyrand, then Bishop of Autun. In support of it he argued, that "the clergy were not proprietors, but depositories of their estates; that no individual could maintain any right of property, or inheritance in them; that they were bestowed originally by the munificence of kings or nobles, and might now be resumed by the nation, which had succeeded totheirrights." To this Maury and Siêyes replied, "that it was an unfounded assertion that the property of the Church was at the disposal of the state; that it flowed from the munificence or piety of individuals in former ages, and was destined to a peculiar purpose, totally different from secular concerns; that, if the purposes originally intended could not be carried into effect it should revert to the heirs of the donors, but certainly not accrue to the legislature."—Thiers, tom. i., p. 193.

[130]M. de Chateaubriand says, "The funds thus acquired were enormous, the church-lands were nearly one-half of the whole landed property of the kingdom."

[131]See Sir Henry Spelman's treatise on the "History of Sacrilege."

[132]See M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 384. "The retreat of Necker produced a total change in the ministry. Of those who now came into office two were destined to perish on the scaffold, and a third by the sword of the revolutionary assassins."—Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 92.

[133]Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 38.

[134]Mignet, tom. i., pp. 107, 121; Thiers, tom. i., pp. 240, 266.

[135]Mignet says, "The Constitutional Church establishment was not the work of the modern philosophers, but was devised by the Jansenists, or rigid party." No doubt, the Jansenists, dupes of the philosophers, fancied themselves guides instead of blind instruments.

[136]It was their custom to sit on the highest rows of benches in the hall.

[137]Mémoires du Marquis des Ferrieres, l. iii.

[138]Mémoires de Bailli, 16 Août.

[139]Prudhomme, tom. ii., p. 297.

[140]See Mignet, tom. i., p. 126; Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 128."I have had in my hands a letter of Mirabeau, written for the purpose of being shown to the King. He there made offer of all his means to restore to France an efficient and respected, but a limited monarchy; he made use, among others, of this remarkable expression: 'I should lament to have laboured at nothing but a vast destruction.'"—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 401."He (Mirabeau) received for a short time a pension of 20,000 francs, or £800 a-month, first from the Comte D'Artois, and afterwards the King; but he considered himself an agent intrusted with their affairs, and he accepted those pensions not to be governed by, but to govern, those who granted them."—Dumont, p. 230.

[140]See Mignet, tom. i., p. 126; Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 128.

"I have had in my hands a letter of Mirabeau, written for the purpose of being shown to the King. He there made offer of all his means to restore to France an efficient and respected, but a limited monarchy; he made use, among others, of this remarkable expression: 'I should lament to have laboured at nothing but a vast destruction.'"—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 401.

"He (Mirabeau) received for a short time a pension of 20,000 francs, or £800 a-month, first from the Comte D'Artois, and afterwards the King; but he considered himself an agent intrusted with their affairs, and he accepted those pensions not to be governed by, but to govern, those who granted them."—Dumont, p. 230.

[141]Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 126.

[142]Mirabeau bore much of his character imprinted on his person and features. He was short, bull-necked, and very strongly made. A quantity of thick matted hair hung round features of a coarse and exaggerated character, strongly scarred and seamed. "Figure to your mind," he said, describing his own countenance to a lady who knew him not, "a tiger who has had the small-pox." When he talked of confronting his opponents in the Assembly, his favourite phrase was, "I will show themLa Hure," that is, the boar's head, meaning his own tusked and shaggy countenance.—S.

[143]"Mirabeau knew that his end was approaching. 'After my death,' said he, 'the factions will share among themselves the shreds of the monarchy.' He suffered cruelly in the last days of his life; and, when no longer able to speak, wrote to his physician for a dose of opium, in these words of Hamlet, 'to die—to sleep.' He received no consolation from religion."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 402.

[144]"His funeral obsequies were celebrated with extraordinary pomp by torchlight; 20,000 national guards, and delegates from all the sections of Paris, accompanied the corpse to the Pantheon, where it was placed by the remains of Des Cartes."—Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 135.

[145]Toulongeon, tom. i., p. 242; Mignet, tom. i., p. 132.

[146]Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 220.

[147]Mignet, tom. i., p. 132; Thiers, tom. i., p. 287.

[148]See Annual Register, vol. xxxiii., p. 131.

[149]"To deceive any one that might follow, we drove about several streets: at last we returned to the Little Carousel. My brother was fast asleep at the bottom of the carriage. We saw M. de la Fayette go by, who had been at my father'scoucher. There we remained, waiting a full hour, ignorant of what was going on. Never did time appear so tedious."—Duchess of Angoulême'sNarrative, p. 9.

[150]Bouillé's Memoirs, pp. 275-290; Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 258.

[151]The following anecdote will serve to show by what means this conclusion was insinuated into the public mind. A group in the Palais Royal were discussing in great alarm the consequences of the King's flight, when a man, dressed in a thread-bare great-coat, leaped upon a chair and addressed them thus:—"Citizens, listen to a tale, which shall not be a long one. A certain well-meaning Neapolitan was once on a time startled in his evening walk, by the astounding intelligence that the Pope was dead. He had not recovered his astonishment, when behold he is informed of a new disaster,—the King of Naples was also no more. 'Surely,' said the worthy Neapolitan, 'the sun must vanish from heaven at such a combination of fatalities.' But they did not cease here. The Archbishop of Palermo, he is informed, has also died suddenly. Overcome by this last shock he retired to bed, but not to sleep. In the morning he was disturbed in his melancholy reverie by a rumbling noise, which he recognised at once to be the motion of the wooden instrument which makes macaroni. 'Aha!' says the good man, starting up, 'can I trust my ears?—The Pope is dead—the King of Naples is dead—the Bishop of Palermo is dead—yet my neighbour the baker makes macaroni! Come! The lives of these great folk are not then so indispensable to the world after all.'" The man in the great-coat jumped down and disappeared. "I have caught his meaning," said a woman amongst the listeners. "He has told us a tale, and it begins like all tales—There wasONCEa King and a Queen."—S.

[152]Three commissioners, Petion, La Tour Maubourg, and Barnave, were sent to reconduct the fugitives to Paris. They met them at Epernay, and travelled with them to the Tuileries. During the journey, Barnave, though a stern Republican, was so melted by the graceful dignity of the Queen, and impressed with the good sense and benevolence of the King, that he became inclined to the royal cause, and ever after supported their fortunes. His attentions to the Queen were so delicate, and his conduct so gentle, that she assured Madame Campan, that she forgave him all the injuries he had inflicted on her family.—Thiers, tom. i., p. 299.

[153]"Count de Dampierre, a nobleman inhabiting a chateau near the road, approaching to kiss the hand of the King, was instantly pierced by several balls from the escort; his blood sprinkled the royal carriage, and his remains were torn to pieces by the savages."—Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 271;M. de Campan, tom. ii., p. 154.

[154]Drawn up by Brissot, author of thePatriot Française.

[155]Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 311.

[156]Mémoires de Mad. Roland, art. "Robert,"—S.—[part i., p. 157.]

[157]Thiers, tom. i., p. 312.

[158]"Mr. Fox told me in England, in 1793, that at the time of the King's departure to Varennes, he should have wished that he had been allowed to quit the kingdom in peace."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 408.Napoleon said at St. Helena:—"The National Assembly never committed so great an error as in bringing back the King from Varennes. A fugitive and powerless, he was hastening to the frontier, and in a few hours would have been out of the French territory. What should they have done in these circumstances? Clearly facilitated his escape, and declared the throne vacant by his desertion. They would thus have avoided the infamy of a regicide government, and attained their great object of republican institutions."

Napoleon said at St. Helena:—"The National Assembly never committed so great an error as in bringing back the King from Varennes. A fugitive and powerless, he was hastening to the frontier, and in a few hours would have been out of the French territory. What should they have done in these circumstances? Clearly facilitated his escape, and declared the throne vacant by his desertion. They would thus have avoided the infamy of a regicide government, and attained their great object of republican institutions."

[159]Mignet, tom. i., p. 141; Dumont, p. 244.

[160]"One evening M. de Narbonne made use of this expression: 'I appeal to the most distinguished members of this Assembly.' At that moment the whole party of the Mountain rose up in a fury, and Merlin, Bazire, and Chabot, declared, that 'all the deputies were equally distinguished.'"—M. de Staël, tom. ii., p. 39.

[161]Cazalès, one of the most brilliant orators of the Assembly, was born at Grenade-sur-la-Garonne in 1752. He died in 1805. In 1821,Les Discours et Opinions de Cazalèswere published at Paris, in an octavo volume.

[162]Shortly after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, Maury retired to Italy, where he became a cardinal. In 1806, he returned to France, and in 1810 was made, by Napoleon, Archbishop of Paris. He died at Rome in 1817.

[163]After the 10th of August, 1792, Duport fled to Switzerland, where he died in 1798.

[164]King John, act ii., sc. i.

[165]Dumont, p. 272; Mignet, tom. i., p. 151.

[166]Hudibras, part iii., c. 2.

[167]Chabot was the principal editor of a paper entitledJournal Populaire, ou le Catéchisme des Sans Culottes. He was guillotined in April, 1794.

[168]Thiers, tom. ii., p. 12; Mignet, tom. i., p. 152.

[169]Mémoires de Barbaroux, p. 47; Mignet, tom. i., p. 220.

[170]See Annual Register, vol. xxxiv., pp. 70-72, 73.

[171]This work made its appearance in November, 1790; about 30,000 copies were sold; and a French translation, by M. Dupont, quickly spread its reputation throughout Europe. "The publication of Burke towards the close of the year 1790," says Lacretelle, "was one of the most remarkable events of the eighteenth century. It is a history, by anticipation, of the first fifteen years of the French Revolution."—Tom. viii., p. 182. "However the arguments of Burke may seem to have been justified by posterior events, it yet remains to be shown, that the war-cry then raised against France did not greatly contribute to the violence which characterised that period. It is possible that had he merely roused the attention of the governments and wealthy classes to the dangers of this new political creed, he might have proved the saviour of Europe; but he made such exaggerated statements, and used arguments so alarming to freedom, that on many points he was not only plausibly, but victoriously refuted."—Dumont, p. 137.

[172]"Guerre aux châteaux, paix aux hamaux."

[173]Clootz was born at Cleves in 1755. Being suspected by Robespierre, he was, in May, 1794, sent to the guillotine.

[174]Menou was born at Boussay de Loches in 1750. After Buonaparte's flight from Egypt, he turned Mahometan, submitted to the peculiar rites of Islamism, and called himself Abdallah James Menou. He died at Venice in 1810; of which place he had been appointed Governor by Napoleon.

[175]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 52.

[176]See Burke's Works, vol. viii., p. 272.

[177]Their number was at this time, with their families, nearly a hundred thousand.—See Burke, vol. viii., p. 72, and Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 117.

[178]See Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 117.

[179]Jomini, tom. i., p. 265; Lacretelle, tom. viii., pp. 334, 439; De Bouillé, p. 422.

[180]See two articles on the pretended treaties of Pavia and Pilnitz, signed Detector, in the Anti-jacobin Newspaper, July 2, 1798. They were, we believe, written by the late Mr. Pitt. [Since this work was published it seems to have become certain that the letters there referred to were the productions of Lord Grenville, at that time Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.]—"As far as we have been able to trace," said Mr. Pitt, in 1800, "the declaration signed at Pilnitz referred to the imprisonment of Louis: its immediate view was to effect his deliverance, if a concert sufficiently extensive could be formed for that purpose. I left the internal state of France to be decided by the King restored to his liberty, with the free consent of the states of the kingdom, and it did not contain one word relative to the dismemberment of the country."—Parliamentary History, vol. xxxiv., p. 1316.—S.

[181]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 61; Thiers, tom. ii., p. 48.

[182]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 48.

[183]"The adoption of this oppressive decree was signalized by the first open expression ofatheisticalsentiments in the Assembly. 'My God is the Law; I acknowledge no other,' was the expression of Isnard. The remonstrance of the constitutional bishops had no effect. The decree was carried amidst tumult and acclamation."—Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 46.

[184]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 46.

[185]Mignet, tom. i., p. 164; Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 74. "The war department was intrusted, in December, 1791, to M. de Narbonne. He employed himself with unfeigned zeal in all the preparations necessary for the defence of the kingdom. Possessing rank and talents, the manners of a court, and the views of a philosopher, that which was predominant in his soul was military honour and French valour. To oppose the interference of foreigners under whatever circumstances, always seemed to him the duty of a citizen and a gentleman. His colleagues combined against him, and succeeded in obtaining his removal. He lost his life at the siege of Torgau, in 1813."—M. de Staël, vol. ii., p. 39.

[186]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 77.

[187]This strange argument reminds us of an Essay read before a literary society in dispraise of the east wind, which the author supported by quotations from every poem or popular work, in which Eurus is the subject of invective. The learned auditors sustained the first part of this infliction with becoming fortitude, but declined submitting to the second, understanding that the accomplished author had there fortified himself by the numerous testimonies of almost all poets in favour of the west, and which, with logic similar to that of M. Brissot in the text, he regarded as indirect testimony against the east wind.—S.

[188]"On Sunday, the 30th October, 1791, the gates were closed, the walls guarded so as to render escape impossible, and a band of assassins, commanded by the barbarous Jourdan, sought out in their own houses the individuals destined for death. Sixty unhappy wretches were speedily thrust into prison, where, during the obscurity of night, the murderers wreaked their vengeance with impunity. One young man put fourteen to death with his own hand, and only desisted from excess of fatigue. Twelve women perished, after having undergone tortures which my pen cannot describe. When vengeance had done its worst, the remains of the victims were torn and mutilated, and heaped up in a ditch, or thrown into the Rhone."—Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 54.

[189]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 75.

[190]"After a long exposition by Dumouriez, the King, with a tremulous voice, pronounced these words:—'You have heard, gentlemen, the result of my negotiations with the Court of Vienna: they are conformable to the sentiments more than once expressed to me by the National Assembly, and confirmed by the great majority of the kingdom. All prefer a war to the continuance of outrages to the national honour, or menaces to the national safety. I have exhausted all the means of pacification in my power; I now come, in terms of the Constitution, to propose to the Assembly, that we should declare war against the King of Hungary and Bohemia.'"—Mignet, tom. i., p. 168;Annual Register, vol. xxxiv., p. 201;Dumouriez, vol. ii., p. 272.

[191]"I was present at the sitting in which Louis was forced to a measure which was necessarily painful to him in so many ways. His features were not expressive of his thoughts, but it was not from dissimulation that he concealed them; a mixture of resignation and dignity repressed in him every outward sign of his sentiments. On entering the Assembly, he looked to the right and left, with that kind of vacant curiosity which is usual to persons who are so shortsighted that their eyes seem to be of no use to them. He proposed war in the same tone of voice as he might have used in requiring the most indifferent decree possible."—M. de Staël, vol. ii., p. 40.

[192]The site of the old convent of the Feuillans.

[193]Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 76.

[194]Servan was born at Romans in 1741, and died at Paris in 1808. "He was," says Madame Roland, "an honest man in the fullest signification of the term; an enlightened patriot, a brave soldier, and an active minister; he stood in need of nothing but a more sober imagination, and a more flexible mind."—Memoirs, part i., p. 72.

[195]Clavière was born at Geneva in 1735, "where," says M. Dumont, "he became one of the popular leaders: shrewd and penetrating, he obtained the credit of being also cunning and artful: he was a man of superior intellect: deaf from his youth, and, deprived by this infirmity of the pleasures of society, he had sought a compensation in study, and formed his education by associating politics and moral philosophy with trade."—Being denounced by Robespierre, to avoid the guillotine, he stabbed himself in his prison, June 9, 1793. His wife poisoned herself on the following day.

[196]Duranthon was born at Massedon in 1736. In December, 1793, he was dragged before the revolutionary tribunal, and guillotined. "He was an honest man, but very indolent: his manner indicated vanity, and his timid disposition and pompous prattle made him always appear to me no better than an old woman."—Mad. Roland, part i., p. 71.

[197]"A true jack-in-office of the old order of things, of which he had the insignificant and awkward look, cold manner, and dogmatic tone. He was deficient both in the extensive views and activity necessary for a minister."—Mad. Roland, p. 70. He died in 1803.

[198]Thiers, tom. ii., p. 59; Mignet, tom. i., p. 64; Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 89.

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